Author: TheConversation

By Raymond Scheppach, Professor of Public Policy, University of Virginia Many people believe governors make good presidents. In fact, a 2016 Gallup Poll found that almost 74% of people say that governing a state provides excellent or good preparation for someone to be an effective president. As a result, many political commentators have tried to explain why Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is stumbling in his campaign for president. Some say it is because he is stiff or awkward on the campaign trail, or his path to the nomination is not really to the political right of former President Donald...

By Colin Kohlhaas, Doctoral Candidate, History, Binghamton University, State University of New York In recent years, the United States has seen a surge of White Supremacist mass shootings against racial minorities. While not always the case, mass shooters tend to be young White men. Some journalists and researchers have argued that class and ideals of White masculinity are partly to blame. This argument is not surprising. Throughout U.S. history, White men’s anxieties over their manhood and social class help explain many violent attacks on Black people, whom the perpetrators blame for denying them their rightful privileges. Such was the...

By Ozgur Ozkan, Visiting Professor of International Studies, Tufts University From the beginning of the war in Ukraine, Türkiye has performed a delicate balancing act, portraying itself as an ally to the warring sides while reaping economic and political benefits from its relationship with both. Türkiye has condemned Russia’s invasion and extended diplomatic and material assistance to Ukraine’s war efforts. At the same time, the country’s leader, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has pointedly opted not to join the Western-led sanctions against Russia or cut ties with Moscow. But Türkiye’s neutrality in the Ukraine conflict is seemingly meeting with growing impatience...

By Kateryna Shynkaruk, Senior Lecturer of International Relations, Texas A&M University During a meeting with the nation’s diplomatic corps, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy gave Ukraine’s ambassadors their marching orders for the rest of the year: Work to help secure Ukraine’s membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the European Union. Zelenskyy also told the ambassadors to focus on helping Ukraine secure bilateral agreements for security guarantees between Ukraine and individual G7 countries, including the United States. “The task of ambassadors to NATO countries is to work to consolidate all the capitals of the Alliance around common security priorities,” he...

By Natalie Florence, PhD Candidate in Humanitarian Design and Infrastructure Studies, Arizona State University; Heather Ross, Clinical Associate Professor in Nursing and Clinical Associate Professor, School for the Future of Innovation in Society, Arizona State University Many cities set heat records in summer 2023, with high temperatures for consecutive days. Providing basic services like including cool spaces for people experiencing homelessness was lifesaving under such conditions. In 2022, about 1,670 people across America died from heat-related causes, many of them unsheltered. Estimates are not yet available for summer 2023, but given this year’s extreme conditions, the toll is expected...